Collector properties

Table of contents

This article explains the XML File Properties that you set in the Edit Collection wizard. In version 4.0 there were no XML File Properties to set.

In version 4.1 and later, those properties are:

Name Depth: The number of levels of an input element's fully-qualified name to use in its label when HPE Consumption Analytics Portal generates the default output field mappings for a collection. More levels included means more context in the names of dimensions and measures, but also longer names. For example, for an input element named service.server.name a Name Depth of 1 results in the label name. A Name Depth of 2 results in the label server.name. The default is 2. Of course, you can change these labels to whatever you want. If this setting causes a name conflict, numerals are appended to the labels after the first occurrence. For example, name, name2, name3, and so on. Setting Name Depth to 0 is not recommended: this causes all names to be NULL and conflict with each other, producing the label values NULL, 2, 3, and so on.

You must set Name Depth before either finishing the Create Collection wizard or opening Advanced Configuration. The automatic output field mappings that this setting affects are created when you do either of these things for the first time, so any changes to the setting after that have no effect.

Ignore Root: Whether to ignore all elements at the first, or root, level of the XML document both when automatically creating the default Advanced Configuration settings and when running the collection. Because the XML Collector must read to the bottom of the hierarchy for an element at a given level in the document in a single memory operation, a document where everything is contained by a root element can slow down performance or even crash the collector. When you have such a document and the root element contains no attributes that are of value, set this option to Yes to allow the collector to read the elements at the next level individually. The following abbreviated example XML document is a good candidate for using Ignore Root.

Changing the setting of Ignore Root after the default Advanced Configuration settings have been created will cause XPath expressions to fail because they are generated based on whether the collector is expected to ignore the root element when it runs. If you need to change this setting, also click Reset to Default in the Advanced Configuration dialog box to create XPath expressions that align with the new setting. You might need to modify the expressions or their output mappings from there.